This Ferrari thing; I don’t know about you but once you've got it it's impossible to recover from, it just won’t go away. I caught the disease back in 1967 when the best looking cars of all time (P4s) were at Le Mans – pause for several hours of lively discussion on Ferrari aesthetics.

So I still go looking for them and even if you don’t go outside Europe there’s plenty out there for all tastes. If you’ll excuse me then, here are a few words and pictures on my 2006 Ferrari safari. Two events made a considerable difference this year: Monaco Historic Grand Prix and the Le Mans Classic because both are bi-annual and whether by co-incidence or design it happened that both occurred during 2006.

I have to admit that I was feeling a little churlish whilst I was huddled in the pits at a bitterly cold Silverstone in February for the Pomeroy Trophy. This is the VSCC’s annual season opener and is usually guaranteed to produce interesting machinery often brought by restoration shops as a sort of shake-down before things get serious. The Warburton 275 GTB (pic) was glorious in Giallo and warmed the day somewhat and I was to see it again in the small French town of Arc-en-Barrois, not far from Chaumont, when I joined the Tour Auto for a few days of rallying round France.

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Tour Auto

GTBs are all the rage in classic rallies at the moment and there were several on the Tour. It’s a great driving event and a wonderful way of seeing France as it covers the country virtually top to bottom almost without touching Peages, although this time there was a section to start with. If you like the idea of cruising along deserted single-track V roads at speeds illegal on M roads in the UK then give it a try. It was great to see Lancksweert’s 1953 212 Export given its head and then waiting as 250 GTs of all sorts, GTBs, Le Mans Daytonas and Group 4 Michelotto 308s follow on behind in the long 200 car parade.

Monaco Historique

Soon after, Monaco gave us plenty of single-seaters and this year only one sports car race. This latter was for ‘50s cars so think 225s, 166s and big 340s. Bamford looked very brave hauling the big open 340 round. The Grand Prix cars put on a great show from Vonlanthen’s 500 through Prandina’s ‘what-was-Forghieri-thinking’ Spazzaneve 312, to the screaming late-model cars. Thank you Corsa Clienti, Uwe Meissner and not least, the owners.

Silver Flag Hillclimb

The Silver Flag historic hillclimb – well worth a visit – in late June and situated about 30 kms south-east of Piacenza, brought a varied selection of Enzo’s finest including an incredible contrast between a current FIA GT 575 Maranello racer flat out on the road courtesy of Pietro Silva and several ‘50s cars, 250s Boano, TdF, GTO and TR, not to mention 500 TRC, 750 Monza and Walter Burani’s 312T GP car - the last quite a sight flat out through a village!

Part II soon...